10/04/09
Sept 27 (Sun): Heather & Andy's DIY presents.....How to change a toilet:
1. Close the shut-off valve at the back of the tank. Flush the toilet a couple times and remove any remaining water with a sponge. Unscrew the hose from the tank.
2. If possible, unbolt the tank from the bowl and remove. Unbolt the bowl from the floor and carefully lift straight up over the bolts to remove. Discard. Stuff a rag in the drain hole so that nothing can fall down in.
3. Remove the old wax ring from the flange (top of drain pipe). Check that the bolts from the flange are still in good shape and the right size and position for the new toilet. Test by placing the new toilet bowl on the bolts before adding the wax ring.
4. Place a new wax ring on the bottom of the toilet bowl. Do not try to re-use the old one.
5. Remove the rag from the drain hole. Carefully place the bowl over the flange and bolts. Make sure toilet is square to the wall.
6. Sit on it to compress and seal the wax ring (get the heavier person to do this). Distribute your weight as evenly as possible.
7. Tighten the nuts onto the bolts from the flange. Cap the bolts.
8. Install the tank by placing the rubber seal on the threaded hole on its bottom, then bolt onto the bowl, swapping sides often. Do not over-tighten as it might cause cracking of the porcelain.
9. Attach the water hose to the new tank. Open the shut off valve. Check out those bubbles!
10. Flush the toilet a few times.
Not that hard, is it? If we can do it all by ourselves, you can too! Huguette, I know you will be trying at your first opportunity! ;-)
Actually, Andy did most of it by herself - because during step 2 my lower back went pop followed by pain, weakness, and a minor dropping of the old toilet. Guess I'm off to the chiro tomorrow. I was valuable, however, in suggesting the putty knife to get the old wax ring off and reminding her to take the rag back out of the hole before she put the toilet on the flange!
So, now we have changed from our old 10 litre tank to the Dual-Flush 3 or 6 litre tank.
As you can see, the new one does stick out several inches more, but luckily our bathroom has space for this. The new toilet was purchased through the region's water conservation program. We got an instant rebate at the cashier and now we can send in for the other rebate, then it will only have cost us $75 plus the $2.50 wax ring. One complaint.....the damn seat slides side to side. That'll teach us not to wiggle!
After we finished this project, we were both pretty much toast. Andy'd worn herself out, and I'd been up two hours earlier than her puttering about plus my lower back was still giving me twinges. We crashed in the basement to watch the Singapore Grand Prix. Comet was very happy to join us for lots of rubbing and the purring was deafening at times. As for Casper, we've already given up trying to supervise her time outside. She's broken us with her howling and crying to go out. She'll have to dodge any hawks on her own.
Last night it was great to be able to go one of Vickie's Jam Sessions again. We hadn't been to one since before Andy got diagnosed. We only lasted about 90 minutes and had to leave when things were really switching into high gear, but it was still great. I love listening to the different combination of instruments and voices. It's never the same twice. And there's always somebody interesting to talk to. This time we met Val, who with her husband, David, taught Ballroom Dancing on cruise ships all over the world for 6 years, and this was after she worked at Canadian Tire for 30 years. They are also Brits from Liverpool originally, but have been in Canada since 1969, and most ironically, even though we were at Vickie's in Guelph, they live just down our street.
Earlier in the day, I did lots of garden chores out in the wonderful sunshine, while Andy was off to Toronto for a PMI seminar. She really enjoyed it and found it greatly helpful as the topic was Scheduling, which she is heavily into at work right now for one particular, enormous project. She goes to these to earn credits to maintain her Project Management Professional certification.
After such a warm and humid week that we had to put the air conditioning back on, Friday night it really cooled off. We attached the new blower to the wood stove, which was way easier than I was expecting, then Andy made us an awesome fire. The blower is a bit noisy, so we'll leave it off when we are in the basement. Otherwise, it wasn't a highly productive week during the evenings as most of our favourite shows were premiering. House and Grey's Anatomy were both 2 hours, plus there was NCIS, Law & Order: SVU, Criminal Minds, and a new show, The Good Wife, that we ended up really liking. Tonight it's been 2 hours of The Amazing Race for me while Andy did some work.
Andy recovered well from her hospital day on Tuesday. No problems. We go back on January 5th for another checkup and fun day in Medical Day Care.
Sept 23 (Wed): Correction: I called Bruce Ken in the picture below. Red shirt guy is Bruce. His partner is Ken, who is not even in the picture.
Andy had her cancer check-up yesterday. Details are on her lymphoma log.
Sept 20 (Sun): Had a bit of scare tonight. Was outside barbequing dinner when I heard rustling in the back neighbour's tree. I looked over to see a really big bird circling around and landing on our fence. To my great shock it was a small hawk! Thank gawd for instincts because without hesitation I ran and grabbed Casper, who was intrigued by this new visitor (not realizing the danger), and stuck her in the house. I'm sure in the hawk's eyes she looked very similar to a tasty bunny.
Speaking of backyard guests, Mr. Cricket hung around for ages this afternoon.
Today was spent doing many jobs. We took down the gazebo for the winter, I cut the grass, but only the back yard as the front has hardly grown and is now getting brown and crunchy thanks to no rain for 20-something days, Andy washed and thoroughly waxed the car, it took me ages to deflate her floaty chair, we're slowing emptying the pool by watering the flower and veggie gardens via bucket brigade, Andy did some more driveway patching & picked some plums to take to work, I spent quality time with some dishes and laundry, Andy paused between jobs to have a nice chat with her brother and parents, and we did a trip to Lowe's where we were able to get the electric blower that attaches to the back of the wood stove.
Yesterday was busy also. As we were outside getting ready to head out, my cousin, Rick, and his wife, Karen, were out for their morning walk, so crossed the road to have a chat. Their next stop was washing machine shopping and they asked to see our front-loader. I mention this because I got a kick out of Karen walking down the stairs saying that if our laundry room is clean, she's going to.....and then she saw that it is and grumbled with envy. I reminded her we don't have kids. They have two teenage boys. When they left, we hit the highway.
Victor was showing his work at the Queen West Art Crawl in Toronto, so we went to check it out. Steven is his devoted assistant.
There had to be a couple hundred artists there displaying paintings, pottery, photographs, sewing, toys, and one that really caught our attention (but was out of our price range) was the glass art.
In the evening, we joined some friends for a birthday party for Carol. Since Denise's birthday had been missed in the summer with most of us away, we tagged that celebration on as well, plus Ken (in the red shirt) was also celebrating. It was a potluck dinner and we took some experimental garlic mashed potatoes that seemed to go over well, and Craig had made delicious breaded chicken with an ancho pepper-honey sauce that was delicious.
We had a really good time and the night flew by. When we left, were we ever happy to have heated seats in our new Tucson! Brrrr. The days are very nice, but the nights have really cooled off - in fact, Andy has already converted us to the "winter" duvet, which is several pounds heavier than the summer one.
Friday night, we picked up our new 2009 Hyundai Tucson GL. It has a 2L engine, automatic transmission, and front wheel drive (not 4x4). After a month of car shopping, running around, flip-flopping between used and new a couple times, and encountering several glitches in the final buy, it's a huge relief! Zero interest financing was the deal-clincher on buying new. Silver was our second choice, but we like it.
It has some neat features, like one that is not all that common anymore - the tailgate window opens.
We made sure to buy the retractable "cargo cover" for the back.
It came with side roof rails and we added on the cross rails that our kayak rack will fit to.
Other add-ons are the "ECC" - Electronic Corrosion Control module, a power sun roof, and an upgraded stereo with "Nav" system (GPS). The ECC runs a small current through all the metal parts of the vehicle at all times to prohibit rust.
The "stereo" is a
Motevo GTV-X2 with a
6.1" LCD touch screen. To our surprise, it came with more features
than just the stereo and Nav system we were expecting. It has a
Bluetooth hands-free interface, which works with our cell phones.
There is a mic under the volume knob, the sound comes out the speaker in
the front passenger's foot well, and you dial on the screen. When
I made a test call to Andy in the house, I couldn't believe how clear
the sound was. There are also some cables in our glove box.
One is attached inside somewhere - it's for an iPod and the touch screen
has controls for it. The other cables are adapters for the USB
jack and auxiliary audio input jack. And then there is the
component that shocked me the most. The CD player is also a DVD
player. We sat and watched the first five minutes of a movie
Friday night. Crazy. Even crazier is the remote control that
goes with it. I think we like this vehicle.
Hey, if you haven't seen it yet, you've got to watch this awesome video of the Black Eyed Peas on the Oprah show - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIh7vxdVhE4.
Sept 13 (Sun): Following up on RibFest, there were some excellent stats in the newspaper. In this their 14th year, three records were set: $320,000 was raised for the Rotary Club charities (up from $250,000 last year), 175,000 people attended (up from 148,000 last year), and 150,000 pounds worth of ribs were eaten.
We had a lovely weekend, plus were very productive. Rugs have been shampooed, driveway depressions have been topped up, hair has been bleached and coloured (depending on which person), laundry done, floors mopped, windows washed, and cobwebs sucked out of existence into the oblivion of the vacuum. Andy even managed to "whipper snipper" a couple holes into a filter hose for the pool, so for a brief time we had the world's smallest fountain - but electrical tape works really well for such things, as I learned from my father many years ago. He can fix anything with electrical tape - he would even use it in lieu of a bandaid!
Yesterday, between chores, we had a nice lunch with Kathy & Denise, on the patio in the sunshine at the Queen's Head Pub. They had to be in Burlington for something, so gave us a call. It had been months since we'd seen them thanks to conflicting calendars, so it was really nice chatting and catching up.
Today, we had the family over for an 'End of Summer Family Potluck BBQ'. We really lucked out with a gorgeous day, and the pool was still just warm enough for the braver of us to get in. It was 75o F, which actually wasn't so bad once you got used to it.
The kids seem to love to race. We call out different race parts for them. For example: Start with 3 jumping jacks, then go touch the rain barrel, go around the pool, go around the peach tree, touch the gate, go around the lilac tree, and come back to the deck. They laugh the whole way but, basically, it's a sly plan to try to try to wear them out!
And then we had the TOURNAMENT! It was a blast!
After 'Round 1', we paused for watermelon inhalation, polishing off 3/4 of a whole one. Then had another elimination round, and then the finals.
Scot was the big winner, Grace came second, and Ben was third. Andy had made medals and then held a medal ceremony.
She had actually made enough for everyone, just in case the kids weren't in the top 3. After the tournament, some of us had relaxing time, and some played more sports.
For dinner, I had made a macaroni salad with onions and peppers from our garden, then BBQd chicken breasts. Monica brought a caesar salad (a popular staple at all our dinners), Mom made a jelly salad, coleslaw, and two cheesecakes for dessert, cherry and blueberry. It was a feast to be sure! And very delicious.
We'd also had a few cherry tomatoes from the garden. We have been very pleased with our experiment this year and will expand next year.
Our peppers have also been very good and I especially like the bigger tomatoes - they are the most flavourful ever!
We almost lost the regular tomatoes half way through the summer when I took some advice to mix ashes from the fireplace into the soil. Maybe I used too much, but we won't be doing that again!
We had another water lily last week. We're surprised that they really don't last very long, only 3 or 4 days. There's another one coming and we can't wait to see what colour it will be.
Sept 7 (Mon): Back to work tomorrow after a busy long weekend and we are exhausted (will have to rest up at work!). Andy seems to have recovered fairly quickly after staying home Thursday due to a sore throat. We think she was a bit run down. She spent the day resting and then had Friday as a vacation day anyway. I came home early Friday as the kids were being dropped off at 3 for an overnight stay. We headed straight off to the LaSalle Park wading pool & splash pad.
Saturday morning, the 4 of us headed off to RibFest down at Spencer Smith Park.
It's not just ribs - there's lots of yummy stuff that's really bad for you.
One of these years I am going to get one of these Blooming Onions. They look SO good. When we were sitting down eating, we were surrounded by them. I think we were the only ones without one.
This is my favourite rib place - Silver Bullet BBQ. They have FABULOUS honey-garlic BBQ sauce.
We had gone early to try to beat the crowd and because there was some children's entertainment. Ben and Grace were the first ones on the rock climbing, and because there really wasn't anybody else around, they got to just keep going up and down until someone else showed interest. We paid for 2 climbs each and I think Grace did 4. Ben said his hands were slippery and he was afraid of falling, so he was less of a monkey than Grace. She just had no fear - practically ran up the 24 foot wall each time.
Then they went on 6 bouncy castles.
Andy doesn't like pork, so she found a big baked potato with sour cream and chives, but the kids and I shared a rack (plus I got two pulled pork sandwiches with beans and coleslaw to bring home).
We finished eating just in time for the kids to sit front row for the magic and juggling show. They both ended up on stage at different points, but I missed getting a picture of Grace. Ben is wearing what he thinks is a black hat - but it was reversible. When the woman lifted it off and showed him the rabbit head, we heard a very typical, "What the heck?!"
After a twisty chocolate and vanilla ice cream cone for the Ben and Grace, we delivered them home (with a nice sugar-high) by the 2:30 deadline. Then it was home and a nap for us - we had slept lousy!!!!
About 2 am we were woken by a huge THUMP. It sounded like it came from downstairs but I wasn't sure. I checked on the kids, no-one had fallen out of bed or was even awake, so I searched the entire house, and even looked outside. Nothing. Maybe Grace had kicked the wall. Back to sleep, till another THUMP about 2:30. Again I searched. Again nothing. Back to sleep. At 3:30 it was THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. At this point I recalled Mom saying that Ben was a bit of a thrasher in his sleep. I examined him and his room more thoroughly to find that he was kicking the books and toys that were on the opposite side of the double bed onto the floor. I then moved everything off the bed so he could thrash till his little heart's content, and then we finally got some sleep - till he woke up at 6 that is.
Sunday, we went to Canada's Wonderland again. After a run on each of our favourite roller coasters, Behemoth and the Backlot Stunt Coaster, we spent the rest of our time in Splash Works. I joined Andy on the Black Hole this time and it's not as bad as it looks. She tried a new ride, The Riptide Racer, for which you lay on your stomach on a mat and race down a big slide, and we both tried the Barracuda Blaster.
The funny thing that I realized about the Blaster, as we swirled around and around this big bowl before going down the drain, was that it was really rather like being flushed down an enormous, blue & red toilet.
We came home around 4, then I went out to Mom and Dad's to get my old desk that Mom's Dad built for me while he was dying (when I was a teenager). He wanted to build one for the four main grandkids that he saw, but mine was the only one he managed to finish. Andy puttered about doing little jobs. She's been filling cracks in the driveway again - keeps her out of trouble. I also got a present from Mom when picking up my desk - these gorgeous gladiolas.
Today was very busy. We started off with some dead limb trimming.
Andy has new respect for her father with all of his tree climbing and limb trimming - she was knackered and had to rest! Two limbs came down, the smaller of them is the one just above Andy's head in this picture. The bigger one was about 7 feet long.
Since the ladder was out, I decided to check out the eaves troughs and ended up doing some cleaning there. Then we got cracking - more of the wood that is. We did several shifts though the day and got about another 3rd of the fire wood split and stacked. Andy also dug out the camouflage coloured tarp and attached it so that we can keep the wood pile covered (rather than a more offensive bright blue tarp). In between shifts, we had a few dips in the pool. For Andy, it was only a dip enough to get in and onto her floaty chair, as the water was only 78o F. This may have been the last day in the pool. We shall see. And if so, then it went out with a bit of a bang - or rather a sting. One of my favourite big, fluffy bees landed on my leg near my knee. I wanted him to go away so I shifted and stupidly put my leg under water, thinking that it would fly away before it went under. Nope! It stung me. Andy was an excellent nurse, running into the house for Claritin and an ice pack. I haven't been stung since I was a kid and I remember that time being far worse (of course we didn't have Claritin back then). Today, we didn't even have to break out the baking soda.